TNG established that Picard grew up in a vinyard. Him retiring from starfleet and returning to his vinyard...makes sense. For the show to feature the vinyard as a plot device or recurring element may be....unwise. Let's try and break it down. 1. Picard is - apparently - returning to active duty (unclear if he will be a civilian at this point, his lack of a uniform certainly suggests that) 2. The colored uniforms are seen at what is clearly meant to be a starfleet location on earth, most likely Starfleet Headquarters or Academy. 4. The prevalence of young adults wearing these outfits is certainly suggestive of them being cadets 5. In the background of a couple of these stills it's there are a couple of individuals wearing what appears to be the Nemesis uniform - suggesting again that the brightly colored outfits are cadets. 6. The last Star Trek episode to feature cadets was DS9 Valiant, where the cadets wore gray jumpsuits with colored shoulders, while officers wore black jumpsuits with gray shoulders and colored turtlenecks. In Conclusion, it's highly suggestive - by no means conclusive - that these new outfits are meant to be academy uniforms. Other likely possibilities are that these are line officer uniforms, or that these are meant to be "background" costumes worn by extras and that "hero costumes" for the main actors are going to be similar but more finely detailed. There is certainly more than enough evidence and speculation at this point for it go either way.
I didn’t see any Nemesis uniforms. Care to point them out? Also, the young man speaking to Picard is an ensign. So unless he was already a commissioned officer before graduating the Academy, he’s probably wearing a standard duty uniform.
The banners seen in the 'spy' photos say Starfleet Headquarters. I don't think they are, it's just the lighting. They're wearing the red uniforms we've seen already. Via .:: TSN ::. I'm pretty sure that's just the red uniform, the shadow is just screwing up the colouring.
And ST09 Kirk went from cadet to Captain without even graduati--- <slap> Re: Cadet uniforms, I think it was intended that Wesley's original outfit, with the red, yellow and blue horizontal accent stripes, was meant to be a uniform of SOME sort and not just something his mum pulled out of the closet. Likewise, during the original TNG run I was always thinking that his grey jumpsuit was a cadet's uniform and not an "acting Ensign" uniform, but he was wearing it at the same time as the not-Bolian in "Allegiance", so that may not hold weight. Cadet uniforms ended up standardized as of TNG S5, and was refined in DS9 to replace the black with grey. This was in turn revised AGAIN to be more analogous to the FC uniform motif for their only appearance in "Valiant" (footage re-use in "WYLB" nonwithstanding). But in the not-likely-future of VOY "Endgame", a class of cadets had reverted to a slate of grey pajamas with black piping, suggesting that by THAT version of the 2390s cadets had to once again earn the right to wear primary colors.It's also worth pointing out that after TNG, all cadet uniforms also lost their year designators, that we could see anyway. Mark
It's an artifact in the photo editing. Again, they're at Starfleet HQ, not Starfleet Academy, so it seems very unlikely these are all cadets.
Skipping Ensign in the process I'm not trying to convince anyone; I just think the hard-line attitude of "its not cadets!!!!" is wrong. Everything we got now is still speculation. My analyses listed earlier is that the odds of that scene having cadets and/or being the Academy (signs notwithstanding) are somewhere around 40%. Suggestive, but not conclusive. For it being academy, TNG and DS9 both implied that Starfleet HQ and Starfleet Academy were in the same campus. It might be, it might not.
It depends on how Starfleet applies rank in the Academy. Despite common comparisons to American military academies there is no indication that cadets are regarded the same way. Saavik was in the Academy in TWOK at lieutenant and when she left the Academy to be assigned to Grissom she was a lieutenant. So, it isn't as clear cut as perhaps we would like
Reboot? I want the original back with Roy Scheider and the dolphin, before it went 100 or whatever years into the future with Michael Ironside. That was a ridiculous and fun show.